07-19-2011, 09:32 AM | #1 |
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Annoying - Missing Books in Series
I do not understand why publishers decide to not epublish certain books in a series. It makes NO sense at all.
Some examples: Stephen Hunter - Earl Swagger series, Hot Springs (the first) is missing. Clive Cussler - Dirk Pitt, most of the early books are missing. Richard Herman - 2 or 3 random books are missing Dick Francis - All the early books are missing Makes me think about heading to the Torrent. |
07-19-2011, 09:57 AM | #2 |
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For old series, they may not have the rights to publish the eBook or have yet to get around to converting them. But I agree it's very annoying.
Fortunately it's the kind of issue that will go away with time, I wouldn't be surprised if most authors push to get their entire back catalogs available for sale, it's one of the advantages of eBooks Best you can do in the mean time is email the publisher/author to see if/when it'll ever be released. |
07-19-2011, 10:43 AM | #3 |
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There's also the minor point that authors can (and do) change publishers over time and one pub, putting out part of a series, might not have the rights to the rest of the series... as JoeD says, it'll pass...
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07-19-2011, 11:19 AM | #4 |
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An excellent example is L.E. Modesitt's "Recluse" fantasy series. Of the 14 books in the series, about half are available as ebooks, but it's a random selection that's available, which is annoying.
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07-19-2011, 11:34 AM | #5 | |
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Quote:
With Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series the author has the rights to books 1-6, 8 & 9 herself and Minotaur/Macmillan has the rights to 7, 10-18. Now in this case things are OK, or will be soon, because the author has hooked up with some folks to put out the books she has the rights to (she tried self pubbing them, but results/formatting wasn't great) and soon all of them will be out (DRM free too) and Minotaur has all the ones they have the rights to out and available. This wasn't the case not that long ago though and as time goes on other popular series/authors are likely to do something similar to Ms. Stabenow or to work a deal with their current publisher to get their backlists out. Even though ebook availability has come a long way from even a couple years ago it's still going to take time to get stuff out. |
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07-19-2011, 09:15 PM | #6 |
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The one that's making me crazy is Donald Jack's Bandy series. Books three, four and six of nine altogether are available as ebooks.
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07-21-2011, 04:57 PM | #7 |
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That gets me too. I really want to get this series. I can understand people naming a high price for their books, but the idea of people not making them available at all boggles my mind.
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07-25-2011, 09:23 PM | #8 |
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Apparently Sybertooth in New Brunswick has recently republished these in paper. I used the contact page to send them the question.
Probably shouldn't hold your breath, but I'll post their reply here. |
07-25-2011, 09:54 PM | #9 | |
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Quick Response
OK, you can breathe now. Fifteen minutes after I sent my query, this reply was sent back to me, and I didn't notice for yet another fifteen minutes.
Quote:
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07-25-2011, 09:56 PM | #10 |
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I'm very interested in buying up the old Deathlands books, but I'm afraid it won't happen anytime soon. Though they are nominally attributed to "James Axler", there are really several authors in the series, and some of them are dead. What a nightmare in terms of publishing rights. *sigh*
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07-25-2011, 09:57 PM | #11 |
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07-25-2011, 10:55 PM | #12 |
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07-27-2011, 06:07 PM | #13 |
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With older books the publishers simply don't have electronic rights.
Publishers are trying to snatch up those rights now. Some authors are putting those books out themselves. And some authors, I hate to say, are completely clueless about their electronic rights and what they should be doing with them. As for random ebooks in a series where the publishers own the rights, some publishers are clueless. And some of it is because they're paying for ebook conversions and have a huge backlog of titles that need to be converted, requiring time. And if they bother to proof the ebooks, which so many unfortunately don't do, it takes even longer to get them all out. Yeah, you'd think they'd go in order, but the conversion company may be the ones doing it randomly. |
07-28-2011, 08:29 AM | #14 | |
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Heh. 21st century dictionary. Macmillan. n. Publisher. Annoying luddite recidivist pain in the arse working hard to reduce the number of books sold. |
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07-28-2011, 07:11 PM | #15 |
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strange omissions
There was one triology all from the same publisher where the middle volume was missing for quite a while. Did someone just forget that it hadn't been done? They remembered and published it eventually but it was a couple years after the first and third of the series. It was Lackey's Mage Storms series. There are a lot of odd oversights.
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